On Sat, Jul 29, 2006 at 07:33:54AM +0900, Edgardo Hames wrote:

> On 7/28/06, Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan / eircom.net> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 02:42:30PM +0900, Chad Perrin wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 02:26:37PM +0900, Keith Gaughan wrote:
> > >
> > > > But Wine is an emulator, and while it does a good job approaching the
> > > > speed of Windows, it doesn't hit it, nor can it hit it. You're not
> > > > comparing like with like. Now that's far from sporting.
> > >
> > > Actually, no, it's not an emulator.
> >
> >Yes, it is. It's a set of libraries and executables that emulate a
> >Windows environment.
> 
> The name 'Wine' derives from the recursive acronym "Wine Is Not an
> Emulator" (rather, it implements a compatibility layer), although some
> have used the unofficial expansion "Windows Emulator" [0]

Just lie GNU's Not Unix, LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder, and so on. :-)

Seriously though, compatibility layers *are* emulators, what they're not
is *full hardware* emulators. Unfortunately, when people think of
emulators, they think of the likes of Vice, DOSBox, Stella, MAME, &c. So
to avoid the misconception that they're full hardware emulators, projects
like Wine avoid the label. But in the strict sense, a compatibility layer
*is* an operating system emulator because they trick the software
running on top of them into thinking they exist in a different
environment than they really are: it emulates Windows, not the machine
running it.

K.

-- 
Keith Gaughan - kmgaughan / eircom.net - http://talideon.com/
The weed of crime bears bitter fruit...
but the leaves are good to smoke!
		-- The Shadow